A SCRAP dealer who tried to sell memorials looted from a cemetery in a theft described by police “as beyond contempt” was jailed for three months yesterday.

Career criminal Sean McNab, 44, was arrested after staff at a scrapyard refused to buy the 20 bronze plaques and told police.

Last November, the Daily Express reported how police condemned whoever took the haul from the Garden of Remembrance at Blackley Cemetery, in Manchester. Within days, officers found nine plaques dumped beside a railway bridge.

But just 48 hours before their recovery, scrap bosses revealed McNab, of Blackley, had offered to sell them. The missing 11 memorials were never recovered.

McNab – with a “significant criminal record for dishonesty” – admitted handling stolen goods before Manchester magistrates after claiming youths gave him the plaques.

Jailing him for 12 weeks, magistrate Paul Welsh said: “You’re part of an offending chain that the community find abhorrent and it hurts people, hurts people in a wide circle. You provide a market place.”

Sean McNab was arrested after staff at a scrapyard refused to buy the 20 bronze plaques and told police.

Prosecutor Matthew Siddall said police were alerted after families saw the plaques were missing. Officers visited Howarth Metals in Blackley where staff recalled McNab trying to sell the memorials just two days earlier.

He was arrested and the plaques were found in a bush not far from the scrapyard.

Mr Siddall continued: “It’s my understanding that this defendant says he received them in a bag and never looked inside, not knowing what they were. That’s not accepted by the crown.

“His record speaks for itself, it’s quite lengthy and goes over quite a number of years. When he was arrested he tested positive for opiates and cocaine.”

Last October, the Daily Express launched a Stop the Vile Vandals Crusade to highlight appalling acts of metal theft and desec­ration of war memorials across the country.

Joseph O’Connor, defending, said after his client had thrown away the bag he rushed home to “hold his bible to his chest begging for forgiveness”.

Mr O’Connor added: “The defendant accepts he’s a person known to take scrap metal and two people came to him and said can you take this?

“He attempted to sell it on to a second scrapyard. At the time he was provided with the large bag, he didn’t engage his brain.”

McNab was asked how he thought the families felt when they discovered the theft of the memorials. He replied: “I felt heartbroken. I can imagine they were feeling heartbroken but you’ve got to understand I hadn’t stolen anything.”

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